Excerpt: HARBOUR OF HUNGRY GHOSTS by Eliza Chan

Chapter One

The dozens of joss sticks had already burnt to red spikes, ash like ribbons of shed snakeskin, and still Por Por had not returned. Kiamling threw another handful of hell notes onto the fire. They curled up in the flames, bright as tiger stripes before fading into the darkness. The heat rose to greet her. White and orange tongues flickered hungrily against the shadows between sunset and nightfall, the living and the dead.

Back in Canton, an auspicious date would have been chosen for the ceremony. Preparations and offerings made for days beforehand. Here they only had one night. Kiamling was tempted to start the ritual without her grandmother. She knew exactly what needed to be done. Ever since they had moved to the new colony of Hong Kong, her por por’s services had been in demand. The British threw up new buildings like they were clay pots, one after another after another filling the shoreline. To them it was an indulgence to let the locals bless the land, but to the Chinese labourers it was a necessity.

“You didn’t get the pineapple.” Kiamling’s grandmother had the eyesight of an eagle. Kiamling could barely make out the older woman’s hunched silhouette, and yet her por por could clearly see the offerings Kiamling had laid out for the dead: a boiled chicken, freshly slaughtered; a pyramid of mangoes, their sweet juices making Kiamling’s mouth water; and a heavily laden branch of jewel-red lychees. Always like Por Por to comment on what was lacking rather than praise what had been done. The old woman weaved her way through the burial mounds without so much as a misstep, her staff guiding her.

“It was too expensive.” Kiamling’s voice was high and defensive.

“Should’ve gone myself. They give me a discount.” Por Por prodded the basin of offerings with a stick. At least her silence over these meant implicit approval. Kiamling took it, desperate for any droplets of water on her parched tongue.

It had been five years since her apprenticeship had started in earnest. Five years since they had moved south to the island colony with thousands of other Chinese workers seeking employment and safety from the troubles. Five years of waking up at sunrise to meditate, do training exercises, practise calligraphy and study rice-paper scrolls. Kiamling had gone from a scrawny teen, delicate as a sapling, to a hardy young woman, skin as brown as those who worked the fields.

She may have been trusted with the preparation for the blessing, but Por Por always led. It did not matter how often Kiamling pleaded with her, the older woman insisted she wasn’t ready. Por Por rang a handbell, the sound echoing across the darkness of night. The Chinese knew to avoid the area, had seen the yellow fu talismans pasted around and were safely indoors under the protection of door gods and family shrines. The British had treated it as a spectator sport at first, showing up during the first few exhumations in their sedan chairs, tiffin tins filled with snacks and fine porcelain teapots. But even they grew bored of the novelty, until the spirit hours were left once more to Kiamling and her grandmother: the only yiugwai hunters in Hong Kong.

Por Por chanted, kneeling down beside each burial mound and whispering the ritual words. The earth responded in kind, tossing and turning like she had awoken it from a deep slumber. Loose dirt scattered under her steadying hand, and the corpses stood up in their graves.

Even after all these years, it was fascinating to behold. The dead rising not with smooth movements, or even the clumsiness of an infant, but springing up, limbs locked straight, like statues pulled to their feet. Their skin, where it remained, was thin and grey, barely covering the bones. Tattered robes and pants hung loosely from emaciated bodies, disconcertingly similar to those Kiamling wore herself. After all, before the British arrived this had been a fishing community, and practical, hard-wearing clothing scarcely changed from one generation to the next. The living villagers had long since been relocated, and their ancestors were being exhumed to make way for British expansion. This land would be a new police station, whether the locals wished it or not.

Kiamling worked quickly, expending a burst of qi to make her steps light and fast. Every living thing had qi—vital energy—that flowed through meridian lines in the body. Most people went through life without any real awareness of it, apart from an inkling when they were sick or dying and their supply was entirely spent. Through training or sometimes sheer force of will, a few had their qi unlocked. They could use it for skills beyond what the body was normally capable of: speed, strength, lightness, healing or even fire. Short bursts of qi could be quickly replenished with a good night’s sleep or revitalising foods. Longer than that and there was a risk the pool would be burnt away permanently.

She bounded across the rows of the dead, fastening a fu talisman to each forehead. The brief contact with the corpses’ skin chilled her fingers. She had been warned many times that prolonged contact could cause permanent damage. Por Por watched, arms folded like the governor-general himself. Then the old woman rang the bell again, and the corpses lifted their arms outwards. One more ring and they jumped out of their shallow graves on stiff legs, ready to move to the new burial site.

They hopped into a line following Por Por’s bell and the swaying paper lantern she had hooked onto her staff. Kiamling joined at the other end, stifling a yawn. If they were lucky, she would get a few hours’ sleep before morning, but it was not guaranteed. The corpses’ new home was far from the growing heart of the harbour. It had been a point of contention with the villagers, arguing vehemently that their ancestors’ spirits would be disoriented by the move and become hungry ghosts unable to find their offerings. Nothing good came of disturbing the dead. Worse than poverty in life, a hungry ghost was forgotten: neglected, destined to roam mindlessly for all eternity. But the British were not for budging on the matter.

The spirits should be satiated by Kiamling’s offerings. More food and hell notes than she made in a lunar month. By the time they’d finished moving the dead, the villagers would have demolished the physical food, barely leaving even a measly chicken wing for her to gnaw on. Por Por would get a white envelope of money for their services, but it was never much and would barely cover the cost of incense and paper. It would be another week of sweet potatoes and mantau, as always.

They were nearly out of the European quarter when things started to go wrong. Lightning lit up a cloudless sky like a warning shot. There was a noise like feral animals fighting, and something barrelled into the orderly line of hopping corpses. Limbs entangled as someone fell heavily to the ground. Kiamling stared in shock, waiting for the screams of horror to start. Instead, deep laughter and a heady smell of alcohol assailed her.

“I told you not to run!” The man’s intentions were as clear as his yelled English. His crisp uniform—ubiquitously worn by the British military stationed around the island—was almost unrecognisable, crumpled and unbuttoned to the navel. He ran his hands down the green-tinged neck of the corpse, clearly too drunk to realise this was not the woman he had been chasing, and mumbled words that Kiamling was glad her por por wouldn’t fully understand. The woman who had scrambled out of his grasp was watching further up the street. She held a hand to her mouth to hide a smile.

Kiamling was frozen to the spot, her brain working fast to catch up with what was happening. The woman, face heavily powdered and lips red, bowed—too shallow to be respectful—and turned away, her white tail dancing like an orchid stem as she slunk into the shadows.

Wulei jing. Fox spirits were incarnations of chaos. Most kept well away from yiugwai hunters, but this one had led a merry chase deliberately into their column. Clearly up to no good—wulei jing wouldn’t risk inauspicious energy by careening into animated corpses without reason. Kiamling’s interest was piqued. There was a thread to be pulled on here, one far more interesting than shepherding corpses from one burial ground to another. Without thinking, she coiled like a spring onto her back foot, ready to give chase.

“Ah Kiam!” Too late Por Por called her attention to the foolish officer. Inebriated, he ripped the fu talisman off the corpse’s face to kiss it, throwing the yellow paper carelessly to the ground. Kiamling cursed as she redirected her energy. With whip-snap speed she covered the short distance, dragging the man back by the collar of his uniform as the dead woman’s eyes turned liquid black and she bit at the space he had just occupied. No longer a corpse, she had transformed into a geongsi. The monster snarled, her teeth sharp as a butcher’s saw as she lunged for the yiugwai hunter instead. Kiamling hit at her paralysis points with two fingers and the geongsi froze in place, black claws screeching to a halt.

This shouldn’t be happening. The corpses in the graveyard had received proper funeral rites. They were empty vessels, their spirits crossed over to the afterlife without reason to return. All the proper offerings had been made.

The geongsi’s mouth twitched, a fraction of a second before the paralysis broke. Closing the meridian lines on an undead monster was not Kiamling’s best call; for a starter they did not have the life force to block. It was long enough, however, for her to unsheathe her coin sword in one smooth motion and cut across the monster’s torso. The creature’s scream pierced the air, causing the fu talismans on the other corpses to flutter with the strength of the blast. No time to mess around. Kiamling held her sword in both hands and lopped off the geongsi’s head. The yiugwai-hunting weapon was unique to their trade. Made of blessed coins threaded with red string around a peach-wood core, it was impractical against any living foe, but against the undead and their ilk, it sliced like the sharpest cleaver.

Only after the scream stopped ringing in her ears did she hear Por Por’s command echoing in the silence. “Hold, hold!” It was too late. Too late to consider the ways she could have contained the geongsi rather than dispatching it. Too late to investigate what had gone wrong. Por Por did not voice her disapproval; the thin line of her pursed lips was enough.

They locked eyes across the column of remaining corpses. Yellow fu talismans littered the ground. Words of power had been written on those paper slips, ineffective now they were no longer attached to the corpses. Some of the bodies crumpled straight down. But four of them, an inauspicious number, remained standing, bodies creaking like rusty hinges. Por Por eased a batgua mirror from her belt pouch and signalled to her granddaughter.

“What in the blazes…” the British officer said behind Kiamling. All the newly awakened geongsi swivelled towards him. His breath was an intoxicating scent to them: life and energy. Things they would sup on until he too was transformed into a qi-sucking monster. Por Por thrust her mirror forward in one hand, angling the eight-sided frame. The geongsi covered their eyes, blinded by the moonlight reflected on its flat surface, and Kiamling threw a handful of glutinous rice on the ground. The soles of their feet hissed as the rice grains blackened, leaching out the negative energy. The smell of sulphur filled the air.

Kiamling pushed the officer behind her, parrying the approaching geongsi with her coin sword. She slashed at one, the sword slicing a burning arc down through the creature’s collarbone, slaying the monster. The blade wedged in the hollow ribcage of the corpse. Kiamling pulled with all her might, desperately trying to retrieve her most effective weapon as the other monsters surrounded them. Of course, it had to be the least decomposed corpse, not one whose brittle bones would shatter with a single strong blow. The remaining three geongsi lurched forward and the British officer grabbed her shoulders, pushing her in front as a shield.

“She’s younger!” he offered the undead.

“He’s softer!” Kiamling shot back. She could not shake the drunken coward off, but she dared not turn her attention to him either.

She ducked, the officer having the foresight to follow her movements, and the leading geongsi’s sharp claw hands swiped uselessly overhead. Slamming her hand over his gaping gob, Kiamling mouthed in English: Hold your breath. The monsters did not have good eyesight, but the man’s hyperventilating was signalling their position like the smell of a roast suckling pig.

She needed a plan. A distraction. A—

A dull thud sounded as Por Por’s staff smacked into the side of the geongsi’s head. The monster swayed for a moment before toppling. For good measure she reattached a talisman to its forehead. The other two had been similarly neutralised. She looked down at Kiamling with faint displeasure. “Are you planning on squatting there all night?”

Kiamling stood, face flushed crimson, and wiped her hands on her tunic. The officer still clung to her like a frightened child, and she had to prise his vice-like grip from her. Por Por rang her bell and the corpses stood as though nothing had happened, as though they hadn’t just transformed into vicious monsters. One stepped out of line, and Por Por tapped at its feet with her staff until it took a side-hop back into position. She nodded approvingly at the neat column.

“Someone died angry,” she said, sucking her teeth. It was not unheard of. Resentful emotions at the end could not always be neutralised by the proper funeral rites. The negative energy remained, slowly turning benign corpses into geongsi.

Two corpses could not be recovered, the two Kiamling had all but obliterated during the fight. She knew exactly what her grandmother would say next. “You can come back for that lot.”

She’d need at least two trips with baskets, or if she was lucky, she could scrounge a wheelbarrow off someone. She could already feel the twinge in her shoulders from the fight, her internal qi reserves depleted.

“You aren’t leaving me here, are you?” the man said, tugging at her sleeve.

“You’re welcome to come to the graveyard with us,” Kiamling said innocently. He let go immediately. “Who shall we make the bill out to?”

“The bill?”

“For the exorcism. The destruction of property.” She brushed geongsi dust from her top. Was never entirely sure what that stuff was… probably not worth thinking about too hard. “And the laundry bill.” Chancing it there, but he did not have to know her clothes were threadbare and dirty before the incident.

Dismay coagulated to outrage on the officer’s face, a blotchy red flush spreading from his neck up. He looked as if he was about to give her a piece of his mind when the night caught up with him and he started throwing up.

“On second thoughts, never mind. We’ll figure it out.”

Kiamling could have warned him. The adrenaline rush, the stench of a geongsi’s breath and the realisation that they hadn’t been reincarnated as a street dog or a snake had a tendency to do that to people. Relief tinged with disbelief. By morning he would have convinced himself it had been an alcohol-addled nightmare.

For Kiamling, it was just another day.

Chapter Two

The bamboo yoke creaked as the heavy baskets on either end slumped to the ground. There wasn’t a single wheelbarrow to be found, but a shoulder pole did the trick. Kiamling wiped the dust from her face on her wide sleeves. How much was dirt and how much was the ashen remains of the bodies, she no longer knew. Nor—truth be told—cared. After the first ten or fifteen exorcisms, they all blurred into one.

“You sorted them?” Por Por poked one basket with her staff. What she meant was: had Kiamling just scooped up the debris and dumped it into baskets or had she taken the time to separate the bone fragments and match the frayed shrouds to ensure each body was kept separate and complete? They weren’t complete anyway, not any more. Not that it really mattered. Hadn’t they already had funerals and crossed over to the afterlife?

“Yes.” Kiamling was pleased with her clipped response. Harder to catch the lie when she’d given so little. But perhaps too curt. Impolite even. She belatedly added, “Of course.”

She made the mistake of meeting her por por’s eye. No, that wasn’t fooling anyone. The woman could see through stone and iron. Kiamling tipped one basket into an open grave, the noise distracting her if not her grandmother. At least the dust hid the disapproval.

Por Por did not need to know that Kiamling had spotted bone shards at the original burial site, gleaming white like broken shells in the lamplight. Nor did she need to know that she had scuffed them away with her foot, covering them with a thin layer of earth.

“The main thing is, job done.”

The silence was as thick as the midday humidity. Por Por was furious. The nagging lectures were always forthcoming, but their ferocity was in direct proportion to the length of the preceding silence. The silence meant not just a usual amount of disappointment, but ancestors-turning-in-their-graves levels. Por Por’s fingernails drummed on her staff like a hawk’s talons. It must have only been minutes until she spoke again, though it felt like hours.

“Your mother would’ve taken more care.” Here it was. The inevitable comparison game. Kiamling had nothing against her parents, the supposedly incomparable yiugwai hunters of Canton province. She just resented how much her por por idolised them. They had been deified in death, raised on the household shrine next to Chung Kwai, the god of monster hunting himself.

If Por Por was to be believed, her parents were flawless. A perfect couple, quick-witted, dauntless, as beautiful as the gods, with excellent martial skills and deep wells of internal qi. Por Por had happily retired from the business, confident they could take over. Their expertise was sought across the southern provinces: dealing with dangerous creatures no one else could handle. That was, until their untimely demise at the hands of malevolent ghosts. Only once had Kiamling voiced the obvious—if they were so good at their jobs, how did they get bested? The question earned her ten lashes with a bamboo cane and she dared not speak it again. She still flinched when she heard the switch against an ox’s flank.

The thing was, the parents she remembered were not the yiugwai-hunting heroes who gleamed in her grandmother’s memory like the constellation of the azure dragon. They had been brusque. Busy. Inattentive.

One time she had watched her mother sleep. Squatted by her woven mat and stared in fascination at a woman she barely knew, moles she’d never noticed before and scars that ran up uncovered arms. She had screwed up her face and imagined that they were not strangers under the same roof. That her mother would sack off the monster hunting and take them for soup dumplings. Comb Kiamling’s hair tenderly rather than the eye-watering raking Por Por ministered. Tell her daughters something—anything—about their lives.

When her parents woke, it was training and fighting and travelling as always until Kiamling could only remember the shape of the scar and not the person who bore it. When they had died, she felt nothing. She was more distraught about leaving Canton city, the only home she had ever known. By then her training had started, and there were other things to think about.

“Well, she’s dead.” Deliberately callous, she watched the words lodge like splinters under Por Por’s skin. She couldn’t help herself sometimes, quick to fire and quicker to suffocate in her own smoke.

“She’d be disappointed to see her firstborn so reckless on the job.” It might’ve worked, three or four years ago. She might’ve yearned for the approval of her dead parents enough to buckle down. But Kiamling saw past Por Por’s rhetoric now. An old woman gripping on to shadow puppets. The bygone days.

“It’s done now, why does it matter how?”

“It matters, Au Kiamling, because cutting things down doesn’t solve every problem.”

“Works for me.” It was a circular argument, one they had repeated as many times as the fighting forms.

“Just… just go home. You cannot understand when you aren’t listening.”

Kiamling’s head rang with the echo of handbells. It was a lie, of course—the handbells had ceased long ago, but the hammering in her skull remained. Thoughts like buzzing mosquitoes, never keeping still enough for her to pin down. She was ready to lie down. Ready for the sweet bliss of a few hours’ sleep before dawn. Por Por had sent her home before her meeting with the village elders and their inspection of the new grave site. It was meant as a punishment for her transgressions, but Kiamling could not help but see it as a reward. She disliked the slippery etiquette around their line of work. The faded line between respect and disgust for those who worked with monsters and ghosts. Yiugwai hunters were social pariahs, their proximity to malevolence and death associating them with bad luck in the eyes of the locals. None so unfortunate as the Au family of female monster hunters, unable to produce a single male successor in six generations.

Kicking off her shoes, she lay on the hard matting and willed herself to sleep. A bony elbow jabbed her in the side until she turned over. Her sister lay mere inches away. “I’m sleeping.” Kiamling refused to open her eyes.

“And I am but a lovely dream.” Jingling’s voice was bright. The sound of someone refreshed after a whole night’s sleep. Two years her junior, Jingling was day to Kiamling’s night. Other families had gold and jade, rice fields and orchards, learned scholars and herbalists. The Au family had Jingling. Even in their darkest moments, Jingling was a spring breeze on a sweltering day. Her fair hands took to anything she tried: watercolour, embroidery and dance alike. The family couldn’t easily afford those things, but Kiamling was determined that her sister would have them one day. The life she was meant to lead.

“More like a nightmare,” Kiamling tossed back. Jingling tickled her stomach just enough that she could not sleep. Kiamling groaned, throwing a hand over her face. “What?”

“How did it go?” Jingling liked the stories. As children, Kiamling would tease her with tales of ghosts and monsters, but her sister was never afraid. She drank them in with saucer eyes and asked for more. Kiamling embellished them, adding actions and songs, leaping across their shared bed and kicking imagined demons to the ground. Even now Jingling wanted to hear each detail. Her eyes gleamed like she was pulling a paintbrush across rice paper. It was difficult to resist her powers of persuasion.

Jingling sighed as her sister concluded the story, smacking her lips together as if to taste the last sweet morsels. Then she curled up like a cat radiating heat, the words unspoken: I wish I could come too. She no longer voiced them. Kiamling understood the desire to be useful, to carry on the family business. When she had been about ten, she had snuck out with her sister to watch their parents complete an exorcism. They had held each other, clammy, jittering hands filled with nervous excitement. Kiamling had been so engrossed, leaning forward against the wall they hid behind, that she did not at first notice her sister had passed out. Carrying the eight-year-old home on her back, she’d understood that shared blood did not equate to shared mettle. Jingling had accepted this also, satisfied to listen instead to the stories her sister would recount.

“Por Por was on form. She just can’t accept things done differently. She needs to listen for a change. Stop assuming she has all the answers and pushing people away.” Kiamling heard her sister shift beside her. Could almost hear her smirk. She opened her bleary eyes, regretting it immediately but too impatient to ignore the bait. “What?”

“I said nothing.” Jingling kept an even expression on her face, but the corners of her mouth twitched.

“You thought it.”

“I dare not disrespect my older sister,” she said, tone in mocking opposition to her words. Kiamling sat up, so suddenly that her sister squealed and kicked out her legs between them, sensing the attack that was coming. Jingling might be able to wind her up as well as any sibling, but she knew well that her yiugwai hunter elder sister could—and in previous arguments had—target her paralysis points. It was an unfair advantage that Kiamling was willing to stoop to.

“Out with it!”

“You and Por Por are too alike. She wants you to do everything her way. You want to do everything your way, cut people off before you’ve heard them out. Perhaps you should be listening to your own advice.” Jingling scrunched her eyes closed, waiting for the lid to blow off the overspilling pot.

“When’ve I done anything of the sort?” Kiamling’s overtired brain decided at this moment that it would stifle a yawn and pluck out the answer. Held it dangling like a spider dropped down from the ceiling, spinning slowly before her.

“Hoi gor,” Jingling confirmed. Hoi had lived next door to them in the Canton slums. Childhood friends since birth, he and Kiamling had been inseparable until Por Por had decided to move to the new colony of Hong Kong. Hoi had asked Kiamling to run away with him, elope at fifteen without parental consent or dowry. Kiamling had looked at him as if he had grown a coconut where his head should have been. She had rejected him so thoroughly, so devastating in her critique of his ridiculous notion, that he had turned brittle before their eyes. They might have left for Hong Kong, but he went further. Bought a one-way ticket for the next ship to the gold mines over the ocean.

The memory left a bitter taste in her mouth, like drinking water from a tainted well. She knew her words had been too sharp for Hoi’s foolish proposal. Each one a barb into his thin skin. And yet she couldn’t take them back. She had things to do, skills to learn that would only be hindered by a boy and his lovesick dream of a life together. What need did she have for him, for anyone? She’d not intended to push him onto a ship to America, but all the same she had meant every word.

Now she rearranged her glare into indifference. “It was for his own good. Probably has a house made of gold by now.”

Her sister ran a finger along the grain of the woven sleeping mat. “Perhaps.”

One of the cockerels crowed, throaty and bright despite the darkness having not fully receded. Por Por prized the roosters for keeping malevolent spirits away. A crowing bird is worth more than a laying hen, she would say. Kiamling begged to disagree. Morning always came too soon. Metal pots clattered in the nearby houses and a hum of quiet chatter competed with the cicadas. Kiamling rolled onto her front, face-down in an attempt to deny the fact.

“Ah Kiam, I—”

“It’s fine,” she interrupted, pulling herself to her feet. “I need to get to work.”

“Say hello to Keilin for me.” Her sister kissed her cheek to apologise for upsetting her. The younger girl couldn’t help it. Hers was a quiet life, full of pleasant pastimes and foolish thoughts. A life without worry. One day Kiamling would have to burst that bubble, but not today. Not now. Let Jingling stir up old gossip and strain for tales of yiugwai hunting. It could only mean her sister was bored, and bored meant safe; bored meant happy. Safe and happy was all she wanted for her little sister.

Chapter Three

Kiamling was tempted to skip practice, but her feet moved into the yard without her bidding, setting up the first forms before she could rebel against them. It was ingrained into her very bones. Palm and foot formations followed by sword and spear. A solitary dance watched only by the sparrows who chattered on the roofs. Beneath her thin shoes she could feel the scattered pebbles of the ground. With each sweeping step, the island stirred around her. The set sequence of movements helped her rebalance her qi. Even without a full night’s sleep, the life essence she had used the night before would be slowly replenished throughout the day, like a dripping tap eventually filled a bucket.

She checked her belt of supplies. The pouch of glutinous rice was almost empty. The uncooked rice grains were creamier than the everyday rice, powdery against her fingers. Most people bought glutinous rice to make sticky rice cakes or round soup dumplings for festivals, but it was also excellent at leaching out negative energy. In a pinch, it could repel a geongsi, and could delay someone undergoing transformation after being bitten.

The roll of fu talisman papers also needed filling up. With the right combination of words the long yellow strips could stun all sorts of monsters; could be used as a barrier, even be lit as a projectile weapon. Kiamling enjoyed practising the latter the most. At one point Jingling had followed her around with a bucket of water until she had mastered the direction of her aim.

A small gourd of chicken’s blood hung by her right hip. That one was still full thankfully; even she did not like the distressing job of obtaining the blood ink needed to write the characters on the fu. A spool of red thread, a hand bell and a batgua mirror were fastened to her left side. She polished the small round mirror with the hem of her loose tunic. It was set in an eight-sided wooden frame representing the equilibrium of opposing forces; such mirrors were used by locals as well as yiugwai hunters to ward off evil and misfortune. Or in Kiamling’s personal opinion, if you were a rotting corpse of a geongsi, you wouldn’t want to look at your own reflection either.

Dawn had broken by the time she finished and hurried east to the harbourfront. They lived on the margins of the Chinese district, removed from the rest of the community, who did not want the misfortune of being neighbours with a family who courted monsters and ghosts. Despite the wide streets, she had to weave around wagons loaded with fruit and veg for the market; sedan chairs waiting for the first customers; stallholders hanging out wares in front of their shops. Shutters were flung open and laundry hung on wooden poles from first-floor windows. The pungent smell of dried fish and fresh steamed buns wafted between wide awnings of bamboo or old sheets pinned to provide much-needed reprieve when the sun was at its zenith. Vertical signs were pushed forward onto pillars or hooked higher up the side of buildings, clamouring for attention in an overcrowded visual landscape. Most things happened early or late. The midday sun was relentless, and coupled with humidity so thick it could be cut with a cleaver, the majority of people returned home or hid in the shade.

Further east as she walked, the Chinese district merged into the European district and the architecture became significantly grander. Three-floor buildings with external hallways lined with arched pillars. The British preferred simple designs in many respects, but their buildings towered tall and pale, like the people, over the organic bustle of the rest of the island.

The new cathedral was the tallest building in the area, drawing the eye as well as her feet. Kiamling had watched them install the bell, the pulley straining under the weight. The first Sunday it had started to ring, even Por Por had leapt out of her skin, the sound cutting through the air like the screech of a beast. It no longer bothered them—another foreign voice in the cacophony of an already noisy island—but Kiamling didn’t know what to make of the pristine building: more like a fortress than a place of worship.

There had been a kindly bishop when it had opened. He had tried to talk to the Chinese in Mandarin, much to their amusement. Such was his enthusiasm for missionary work, he was in Ceylon or Japan or somewhere else most of the time. In his absence, the colonial chaplain was in charge. The sour-faced minister stood now at the double doors, his head swivelling this way and that, frown lines indented into his thin cheeks like sharp nails in clay. He looked the sort who wouldn’t find a single dish to his liking at a banquet. Kiamling kept her head down and hurried on, colliding almost immediately with someone as she rounded the corner.

“Oh, I’m dreadfully sorry, are you hurt? I mean, would you like my handkerchief? What am I saying…” The flustered young Englishman’s hands shook as he held out a white square of cloth, positively thrusting it at Kiamling. She must have looked confused, because he suddenly started yammering like a wind-up bird. Kiamling burst out laughing. It was Cantonese. At least it was supposed to be. The poor man—no older than her really—stammered and tried again. The words were there, polite, formal words that no one had ever used in conversation with her, but his tones were all wrong. Down when they should be up, flat when they should curve like a rounded belly.

She repeated it back, just the last phrase. “Up at the end,” she explained in clipped English.

His earnest face brightened. “You speak English! I’m looking for a tutor, you see, vis-à-vis a language partner.”

Kiamling extricated herself with a pasted smile. “Try the fishermen on the waterfront,” she offered as she sidestepped.

“I did, but they didn’t understand me and then they, erm, proceeded to use some very creative hand gestures.” He had folded his arms, pulling himself in tight like a turtle in its shell. The fishermen may well not have understood his odd inflection, especially when the Boat Dwellers mostly spoke their own language. However, it was just as likely they had heard every word and refused him all the same. Hong Kong was a veritable hotchpotch of indigenous ethnic groups—Boat People, Hakka, Hokkien and Bundei—as well as the more recent Cantonese speakers who had emigrated to the island seeking their fortune. To the British they were all Chinese.

“The cobbler at the corner might help you.”

“Do you think?” His eyes lit up and he attempted an awkward bow as Kiamling kept moving, picking up speed to a brisk walk. Thankfully he did not attempt to follow. The cobbler was no more likely to help, but he hadn’t paid Por Por’s bill yet. Besides, he had to sit as he mended shoes, which meant no getting away from the talkative gweilo. Kiamling was nothing if not petty.

The kitchen of the Lin Heung teahouse was bustling when Kiamling finally arrived. The hiss of bamboo steamers rose above the din of tea bowls being stacked and sorted. The rhythmic thud of cleavers mincing pork on well-worn chopping boards was staccatoed with remarks tossed like hot embers from the head chef’s mouth. Don’t you know how to use a knife? I wouldn’t feed those to my dogs. I can pleat better than that in my sleep! And to Kiamling: Any later and you might as well stay with the corpses. He didn’t even glance in her direction, his large hands dexterous as he rolled dough into perfect circles. Beside him, his assistants worked quickly to fill the wrappers, crimping the meat fillings inside before placing them on bamboo steamers. Kiamling nodded in acknowledgement. She knew better than to answer back when the chef was in one of his moods.

Squatting by the dining room door was her fellow potwasher, Keilin. She wordlessly handed Kiamling the remaining mantau. It was nothing more than a plain steamed bun, no filling or topping like the fancy dim sum being prepared all around them. It was also the first thing Kiamling had eaten in twelve hours and the main reason she loved this job.

“Kwok gor scalded himself. Had to be sent home,” Keilin said by way of greeting. The heavy kettles of boiling water sat on charcoal stoves on the teahouse floor, easily accessible when a customer needed a refill. But they were also notorious burn risks, especially when manoeuvring blisteringly hot water.

The louban rang the bell to announce service and slid open the teahouse doors. Half a dozen customers were already waiting: a mix of well-to-do Chinese merchants and British gentlemen, all clutching newspapers three or four weeks out of date. They talked about Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston like they were friends at the cricket club. Waiting staff scooped tea leaves from wooden drawers into lidded bowls, covering them to steep in the hot water. Other teahouses had given in to the British preference for teapots on the table, but the patrons of Lin Heung were amused by the more traditional way. The skill of holding a handleless bowl, tipping the lid just enough to pour the freshly brewed tea into a smaller drinking cup. The most experienced left no more than a drop on the table; the novices might as well pour it directly into their laps.

Kiamling and Keilin were happily relegated to the alley outside the kitchen with their wooden tubs of dishwater and endless towers of dirty plates and cups. They could chat, nibbling on unfinished dumplings and bao when no one was looking. Sometimes Kiamling even took the used tea leaves home to dry and use again. She enjoyed the mindlessness of the job. Her fingers pruned in the cold water, but at least they were clean. Keilin always had a story or three about the fancy Western hotels she cleaned in the afternoons. “They wear cages, that’s what pulls in their waists. The other girls told me it was whalebones!”

“One of you needs to get on kettle duty.” Mr Cheng’s round face was perspiring from the heat of the kitchen. When neither of them eagerly jumped to volunteer, the owner of the teahouse added, “Well?”

“Yes, louban,” Kiamling answered reluctantly, and he nodded, disappearing back inside. She stood, her legs protesting at the sudden movement. It was only fair, since Keilin had deigned to save her breakfast.

Her friend beamed in thanks. “Think of the stories—the British dukes and Indian maharajas you might meet!” Her hands continued to scrub soy sauce stained plates, but her imagination was somewhere else entirely.

Every round table of the teahouse was occupied, but even at a glance it was obvious to Kiamling that the Chinese customers were of a different social status to her. Jade pendants conspicuously worn around the neck and silk robes with embroidered hems stood in contrast to the practical hemp top and trousers of the common folk. Kiamling hefted the heavy kettle with both hands, staggering under its weight. A clumsy misstep swung it against her forearm and she winced as the burning-hot metal touched her skin. A customer waved a fan in the air at her, gesturing at his unlidded tea bowl. Kiamling obliged, glad that the kettle would be that bit lighter the more she poured. The pallid-toned European merchant ignored her, continuing a conversation in English. “I’m telling you, it is a travesty. Appointing a Chinaman!”

The other man had the decency to glance at Kiamling, considering her presence for a brief moment. His eyes slid off her as if it was of no consequence. “He is from Malacca, educated in London, I believe.”

“He could be educated in Timbuktu for all it matters. We don’t need a Chinaman on the Legislative Council. What we need is free trade with Peking! For the celestial emperor to get off his high horse and give us more tea. Silk. Porcelain. Do you know how much they would pay for this back home?” He held up the teacup, an ornate border around the rim. The blue and white porcelain was coveted most of all by the European merchants. “Honestly, all this kowtowing nonsense. All the Treaty of Nanking gave us was this island, and five measly ports to trade in. If you ask me, they should have taken more.”

“Well, the decision’s been made. Bowring has some philanthropic idea of making sure the natives are looked after. Doesn’t want to end up in the state the East India Company found themselves in.” The other man opened his snuff box, inhaling the fine tobacco through one nostril.

“At least under Company rule we turned a tidy profit! This isn’t some charity project, this is business.” The first man leant in conspiratorially. Peculiar given they were having the conversation out in the open as Chinese waiters passed over steamers and plates of pastries. Kiamling had, despite herself, been lured by the gossip and had forgotten she was supposed to be filling tea bowls. The man abruptly stopped what he was saying and looked up at her with a snap. “Are you quite simple or just hoping to whore yourself out standing there?”

Kiamling was in shock. It wasn’t the words, which she’d heard before in many forms and from many mouths. It was the utter indifference with which they were spoken. The assumption she would not understand a word of English, and on the slight chance she did, it mattered little anyway.

“I was just wondering if all your bastards were as ugly as you,” she replied in Cantonese, cushioning her words with a cheery smile. She paused but had judged correctly. She had learnt English. Absorbed it on the docks, in the teahouses and from half a dozen other casual jobs she’d done over the years. It was a necessity. Neither man spoke the local language—they had staff for that.

For good measure, she tipped the kettle and spilt boiling water everywhere. The man leapt to his feet, cursing as it splattered onto his hands and lap. Yelling nonsense about the inferiority of the Oriental brain. It was worth every coin docked from her wages.

In an ideal world, Kiamling would have snuck off after the lunchtime rush had quietened down. They didn’t need two potwashers in the afternoon, and the thought of three hours’ uninterrupted sleep was blissful. But she needed to collect her wages. She had managed to fill her stomach with leftovers from the teahouse, but all there was at home for her sister and Por Por was salted greens. A few coins could buy them some dried fish, a couple of chicken eggs or even a cup of broken rice.

Mr Cheng stood at the door like a guardian lion, blowing out smoke from a long-stemmed tobacco pipe. His braid fell to the small of his back like a snake’s tail.

“Louban, another good day for the teahouse,” Kiamling congratulated him. She sidled up, standing on the step beside him. “I heard some customers say Lin Heung’s tea leaves are the most fragrant on the island. Finest-quality young leaves.”

His eyes swivelled to the sign painted by the door. Finest-quality young leaves. Best tea in Hong Kong. Kiamling hastened to draw his attention back. “The pork buns were exceptional today. Very juicy.” Belatedly she realised she shouldn’t know what they tasted like at all.

Mr Cheng let it slide. He reached into his pocket and counted out several coins into her hand. Kiamling swallowed the lump in her throat. If he no longer berated her for eating leftovers in the alley like a street dog, then he pitied her, knew how meagre her family’s finances were. The coins were like rice grains in her palm. Better than nothing but would barely touch the sides. The owner added one more. “Extra, for your advice.”

In the corner of the teahouse was an altar with the three gods of fortune, prosperity and longevity. A vase of fresh flowers and a small bowl of fruit was placed before them as usual. The manager often asked for the gods’ blessing before the start of a shift and was careful to wipe down the statues at the end of the day. This was nothing new. The Fuk Luk Sau trio of old men were in high demand across businesses and even in homes. What was new was the cross hanging over their heads.

Kiamling recognised it from the cathedral she had passed in the morning, and from the pendants around the necks of the missionaries who sporadically handed out food and regaled the children with stories. The god of the Christians.

“Yesterday one of our regulars brought some church men with him for dim sum. They made quite a scene, and, well…” Mr Cheng wrung his hands together. The front of his head, shaved bald by imperial edict, shone with perspiration and his forehead wrinkled up as he thought back. The confrontation had clearly upset him. Being called out during the lunchtime rush by foreign priests was the kind of publicity no thriving business wanted. Pressuring him to take down his altar and turn to their western God. To remove the Fuk Luk Sau gods would be courting disaster. An offence even Kiamling and her grandmother could not help him out of. Instead, he’d chosen compromise.

Kiamling knew what he was asking for: her blessing to mix the two religions. Her confirmation that no gods or spirits would be cursing his name, pulling the foundations out from under his business. Despite the mild panic in her chest that she had no answer for the unvoiced question, a small part of her was comforted that he had come to her rather than Por Por. Her head buzzed with the rush of elation, and with blustered confidence she replied, “No problem at all. Just offer more joss sticks; on festival days burn a few more offerings. The gods don’t mind sharing.”

Relief spilt across the man’s face like a lotus leaf unfurling on the water’s surface. All the puckered veins hidden under the smooth, calm surface. Por Por was wrong. Kiamling was more than capable of making decisions without her guidance. She had settled this without needing to ask for help. Her earnings could provide for the family. She was responsible enough whether or not her grandmother was willing to acknowledge it.